Living With The Devil
by Abigailhobbsx
Summary: A seven part fic based around Abgail's experiences of living with Hannibal. Reviews welcome.
1. Chapter 1

It was night time in Baltimore, Maryland, and Dr Hannibal Lecter's office was drowned in an inky, suffocating blackness. The only illumination in the ornate room came from the flame flickering in the fireplace, casting dancing shadows across the matte- black chairs and the cream-white curtains. In the half-light, the colours were hard to make out; the darkness brought white and black together and swirled them into unity. The only ambiguity in light comes in darkness, and Dr Lecter liked it that way. It was in his nature to bring ambiguity in light, and darkness too. He found the final result so much clearer.

In the corner of the room, the door creaked open and two figures stepped inside. The differences in silhouette were strikingly defined against the firelight, the first masculine and sophisticated, stood tall and courteously, and the second feminine and helpless, her hands twisting and her breaths shaking.

Without speaking, the first figure strode across the room, his footsteps echoing lightly on the wooden floor. When he reached the chairs he turned and sat, one leg swung over the other, his face blank. He sat like a professional, straight backed but comfortable, fitting seamlessly into his surroundings, a predator in his chosen environment, at ease and in control. Politely, he extended his hand and gestured to the chair opposite him.

"Abigail. Sit."

The girl, still in the corner of the room, did not move. She set her jaw defiantly, but her shaking hands betrayed her screaming nerves. Not that Hannibal Lecter had any ambivalence in his mind over her feelings. He knew of her vulnerability. He could taste it in the very air she breathed. It exhilarated him.

"W-Will sat there." It came abruptly, as though she could not help the words as they manifested themselves on her tongue and spilled off like water over a cliff, spiralling rapidly out of control. She had to say it, to acknowledge it. She had to.

"Lots of people sat there." Hannibal's expression did not change; he regarded her with mild interest and an unwavering gaze. The formality with which he exhibited himself made him cold, inhuman, and incapable of emotion or sentiment, and Abigail drew in a shaky breath. Of course she knew who Dr Lecter was. She had known that when she had agreed to flee here. But she could not say that she had truly seen _that_ side of him yet; except, of course, when it came to masking her own butchery, but she had used that to her advantage. Yet here it was, plainly laid before her defenceless eyes. How stupid of her to think that she might still be in control. It was Hannibal who had wished for her to kill Nicholas Boyle, and kill him she had. Now he wished for her to flee to his house, and she had run straight to him like a puppet on a string. _Well_, she thought. _He has killed too. Has he no feelings on that?_ Boldly, she clenched her fists and opened her mouth.

"And how many still do?" The words shot like daggers off her tongue, but if she had been hoping to pierce the cool, thick skin ahead she was to be disappointed. Hannibal's silence resonated dully in the room around her. He said only one word in reply.

"Abigail."

His voice carried a hint of warning and, this time, she obeyed him. The chair creaked beneath her as she lowered her weight down, perching on the edge, her knees together and her hands clasped.

"Do you know why you are here, Abigail?"

She looked up. _Of course I know why I'm _here. But he needed her to say it, to speak it aloud. He needed control and she was in no position to argue with such a man. Painfully, she drew in a breath and drew apart her clenched teeth. "You're hiding me." Her voice was little more than a whisper, the sentence a conspiratorial crime that she loathed to speak aloud. She was ashamed and she was vulnerable. Hannibal Lecter had a habit of picking the pregnable in life. They suited his purposes well.

He tilted his head slightly, his view of her now solely in his right eye. Slowly, he spoke.

"You are under my protection now. You will do what I tell you, do you understand? Whatever the situation, you do as I say. For the sake of both of us. Don't break this bond, Abigail. " His voice was not threatening but forceful, his words lilting and soft. He was a compelling man; no, not a man. She didn't not know yet quite what he _was_, but he was not a man. He was nothing the barest remnant of human. She had first seen that in his blank, emotionless face as he wrapped his hands around her neck to quell the scarlet flow from her father's final attack, and now she could see it again. He was not a man.

"The FBI, they could find you. Jack, Alana. Will, even. I need your word that you trust me above them. All of them. Do you promise?"

His words echoed in her mind. _Will could find you._

_Will._

Will, who had saved her life. Will, who had killed her father. Will, whose nightmare-ridden nights had assured her that she was not alone. Will, who knew what none could admit, not even herself. He _knew_. Her thoughts raged, a fierce, fear-driven battle with no conclusion. There was no knowing the lengths that Hannibal might have her go to to protect him. And there was no knowing the lengths that she would go to to protect herself. Abgail knew this too well; her own instability made her dangerous, and in the eyes of Hannibal Lecter it made her useful. But, in her own eyes, it gave her something. It gave her the barest hint of control.

_Will. _She had to trust Will. But she didn't have to tell the truth.

"I promise."


	2. Chapter 2

After the first discussion he left her alone for a few days, save to bring her food and other necessities. That suited her. She had little to say to him; she had little to say to anyone. There wasn't one person in this world she felt as though she could trust, so she kept her mouth sealed and her secrets shrouded. Even if she could trust anyone, she couldn't speak to them now. Not while she was living with the devil.

She cried frequently. Often, crying was not the word to encompass it. When she explored her own mind, there were such things there that could not be expelled with simple drops of salt water and some turns of the clock. They were inside her to stay, and they made sure that she knew it. They whispered to her in her sleep and haunted her in her wake. They reminded her that she was not a victim, that she was where she belonged now. She was with the devil, the father of all monsters. She was _home_.

But it didn't feel like it. Not to her. She hadn't felt home for a great many years, not since her own had been tainted with the whispers and traces of the other girls. Everything had felt dirtied. Anything she touched could have once belonged to one of the unlucky ones. One of the victims.

_You are not a victim, Abigail._

_They are the victims._

_They are _your_ victims._

Sometimes she would wander outside at night. She never asked permission, but she knew full well that she was only outside because Hannibal Lecter permitted it. On these occasions she liked to go to the woods, despite the connotations of her previous life. She found comfort in the towering, archaic trees. They were ancient and they had seen many things. They would keep her secrets. But as the days wore on, her midnight walks became less and less frequent. It wasn't that she didn't miss the feel of the breeze in her hair, nor that she didn't want the freedom. It was the guilt more than anything. No matter what thoughts crossed her fragmented mind when she was outside the house, she always found herself right back at his door, where he would be waiting expectantly. He knew she would never run, but she hated herself for it. She was sick of hiding. But she was restrained, trapped, helpless as a fly in a spider's web. "I am glad you are back," he would declare as he opened the door, his eyes glinting. He was mocking her cowardice, and each time he spoke her insides would burn and her eyes would prick with tears. So she left less and less often, fooled herself into believing that she had no choice on the matter. Hannibal appeared to have no preference either way, though she doubted that was true. Her hesitance to leave the house was more than likely another orchestration of his. But he showed no outward attitude to how she spent the time. After all, she belonged to him now.

Of course, there were things he couldn't ignore. Despite what he was, he was not emotionless, and he was not oblivious to Abigail's fragility. But when he attempted to coax the girl out of her depraved, terror-ridden nightmares, he found more resistance than he would have expected from her. She was scared, understandably, but there was something else that kept her from opening up. A kind of wariness, the type of awareness that a person only develops through experience. She knew who he was and she knew what he had done, and, for her, the only way of expressing her distance from him was to refuse his help. He could do nothing about that. She could reject him all she liked, but it changed nothing. One day she would know just how similar they were. In fact, she already knew. She just refused to accept it. Therefore, for the most part, he left her alone to navigate her wasteland of a consciousness. _Who knows, _he pondered. _Maybe she will find something in there worth keeping_.


	3. Chapter 3

The months did not pass slowly, contrary to what Abigail might have expected. The weeks melted one into another. Now that she was concealed from the world, time was no object to her. Inside her head nothing changed, and that was what mattered. Both outwardly and inwardly her world had frozen over, leaving her huddling and shaking on the icy floor of her mind.

She was destitute.

She found herself sleeping more often than she was awake, spilling her rancid thoughts into the sweat that stained her pillow when she startled awake, a scream lodged beneath her chin. The nightmares, for her, were the most horrifying part of the experience. Her own brain would not let her forget her crimes. Her own brain was hunting her. And it was the hunting that haunted her the most.

She dreamed that she was running through the woods. She knew not what she was running from, nor why. She only knew the rising terror crawling up her throat and her short, panic-stricken breaths. The feeling was alien. After so long being the hunter, the one with the power, the shift in balance terrified her. It echoed death, and Abigail was not ready for death. She was not ready to be a victim yet.

Despite her efforts, her pace would always slow after a while. She could never run forever. She would halt, her body bent virtually in half, her breaths shaking and her eyes watering. She would halt and she would wait.

And that was when she would see it. Every time it rose from the darkness, beautiful and majestic, a remnant of her other life. Her breathing would slow. Her heart rate would relax. And, slowly, she would reach her hand out to gently massage the fur of the portentous figure in front of her. Only it was fur no longer. Her hand would not touch the soft, wiry hair of a doe but instead the smooth, silky hairs of a human. Her mouth would open with intent to scream and her legs would stumble backwards but it was too late. All she could do was watch as her old friend advanced, her eyes burning, a hunting knife clutched in her deathly dark hand.

Marissa never reached her. Abigail would always wake before that, her own body leaping to defend itself against the phantom attack. But, if anything, that made the dream all the more indelible in her brain; the guilt that the mere sight of her friend's face evoked in Abigail reminded the girl that Marissa's death was on her shoulders. After those dreams she wished more than anything to feel that cool, sharp blade meet its mark within her stomach, her blood pouring out over her guilt-stained hands. If Marissa's revenge would free Abigail from this cruel, bleak world then so be it. The dream would drain her until the notion of death met no objection inside her tired body.

Unfortunately, the world was not finished with her. Every day she would wake up exhausted, unwilling to face another day of obscurity, but Hannibal would tirelessly rouse her from her dreams and coax her back into reality. Often he would bring her breakfast, though he rarely insisted on eating with her. She ate what she was given, choking down the rising disgust in her throat. She could not refuse. That would be rude. And, where Hannibal Lecter was concerned, rudeness was intolerable.

Although she felt numb to the world, Abigail was not entirely unaware of her spell in the house coming to an end. Though she was not sure how or when, Hannibal was growing more and more tense. Though his composure was never outwardly broken, he showed many signs of unease; he would never stay in one space too long, preferring instead to spend listless hours drawing and, in the case of the last week, packing. She walked in on him one evening folding his clothes into immaculate piles before placing them into a large leather case. But when she asked him where he was going, he simply smiled. "Somewhere new," he replied. "And somewhere better. For us all."

She dared not ask him who he meant by "us all", and what was to happen to those not included. She had a feeling that she would not like the answer. Instead, she retreated to her room and placed the few belongings she had in a small bag. Freedom was coming, and god knew that she was ready.


	4. Chapter 4

So when Hannibal walked into her room late the next evening, her heart leapt. _Soon,_ she thought. _Soon, I will be leaving._

He sat down next to her and turned to face her, his angular cheekbones jutting sharply into the half-light. He could see her smile radiating; he could _smell _her hope from the street outside. Yet he could not bring himself to return her gestures.

"Abigail," he said. "We have to talk."

She nodded and swallowed hard. _This is it._

"Tomorrow night we shall have visitors."

The girl frowned, her clear blue eyes suddenly clouded with concern. Abigail was not stupid. The change in the atmosphere had become so tangible that she could almost taste it; its metallic, cloying flavour left her with little doubt. Something had changed. And as for whoever had changed it; Hannibal Lecter was not a forgiving man when it came to his personal endeavours. Whoever was visiting tomorrow may not see another dawn.

"Who?"

The single whisper of a syllable escaped her almost without her realising. Her body was so desperate for human contact that she had no control any longer over her mouth; any possibility of the barest hint of connection awakened her more than anything else had over the past seven months. _Not Will,_ she begged silently. _Please. Not Will._

"Jack Crawford." Hannibal paused. "But I have a feeling that we may have other guests, too."

_No. Please, Will. Stay home. You're too good for this. For him. For me, too. Leave us behind._

"But we're still leaving?" She could hear the desperation in her own voice. It made her cringe; her own dependency on Hannibal Lecter disgusted herself. But Hannibal did not answer her question. The sparkle that had lit up his eye when he had first mentioned going elsewhere was gone, replaced by a harsh, bitter coldness that chilled her to the bone. Somewhere, somehow, there had been a shift.

"…Aren't we…?" She barely whispered the last sentence. Her hands felt clammy, her breath shaky.

_Aren't we?_

_**Aren't we?**_

"Abigail." He picked her hands up between his. The contrast was distinctive; his cultured, lined, slightly tanned hands looked so out of place holding her pale, delicate fingers. "Do you remember what I said to you on the first night you came?"

She swallowed and forced herself to look at him, her eyelashes fluttering slightly.

"You…You asked me to promise. To promise to trust you." Her mind flashed back to that dark day when she had uttered those words. How helpless she had felt, and yet she had known nothing yet, nothing compared to the suffering she had faced in the past seven months. But she had not forgotten her instability; she had not forgotten her lie.

She had not forgotten her power.

"And promise me you did." He pulled her hands close to him, masking them, _smothering _them with his own. There was a silence; for the first time ever, Hannibal seemed unsure of what he wanted to say next. Or perhaps he was just waiting for the time. After all, he only had one question that he really needed to entreat.

"Let me ask you something, Abigail. Are you ready to kill again?"

The question stunned her; for a second she was numb, but that blissful second was all she got. The bluntness of his words sliced at her like knives; instinctively she jumped off the bed, yanking her hands out of the warm prison that his had encased hers in. He said nothing, watching her movements with nothing more than blank curiosity written on his face. He knew her answer already. It ran in her blood. There was no running from yourself.

He watched the girl, now hunched against the wall on the opposite side of the wall, until her breathing slowed again. Her panic wouldn't last long. The body was designed to deal with anxiety in short bursts; it could not maintain such a state of alarm. This was the basis of the technique of flooding. Place a person in a room with their greatest fear and wait for them to calm down. Unfortunately, the treatment was a controversial one. Patients had been known to have heart attacks. But Hannibal was confident in his application of his psychiatric knowledge. Abigail was strong. She would face her fear again. And she would come out victorious.

When he was sure she was calm again, he stood up and walked towards the door. Just as he reached for the handle he turned, his lips parted. He had only one more thing to say. The rest was up to Abigail; she had to make this choice herself.

"If you want to leave this house, you may have to fight for it. Freedom does not come without cost. Remember that."

The door barely made a sound as he clicked it shut, leaving the girl trembling against the hard, cold wall of her cell.


	5. Chapter 5

Abigail did not sleep that night. She was almost grateful. No sleep meant no nightmares, no harrowing apparitions, no guilt-soaked visions. When she was asleep she often wished she could stay that way forever; when she was awake, she knew she could live with herself. She had to. But her waking state left her in an equally unstable position; Hannibal's question richoetted off the walls of her brain. She had no peace, no respite from her own body, echoing the rhythm of life while staring in the face of its assailant.

_Are you ready to kill again?_

The hammering of her heart, determined to keep beating.

_Are you ready to kill again?_

The hitched rush of her breathing. Reminders of her own survival. Breath taking illustrations of what her own hands could take from another.

_Are you ready to kill again?_

_Are you ready, Abigail?_

_Are you ready?_

The relief was bittersweet when she saw the sun begin to rise above the Baltimore skyline. The sunrise was aesthetically beautiful, but the red lines that streaked across the sky with the coming dawn echoed bloodshed. Abigail tried not to look at it as she dressed, but there was something immeasurably compelling about the sight, something that would not let her go. Beneath her consciousness, the vivid colours tugged at a memory which arose slowly from the depths of her clouded mind. This was not the first sunrise to bring more than she had bargained for.

_March 2011. Abigail is crouched beside her father in the forest surrounding their home. Immediately in front of them is a thin green bush, the flowers just returning to growth after a long and cold winter. In front of that stands an elegant caramel-coated doe. Above them the sky is slowly shifting colours, dispelling the inky blackness of night to welcome in the sun. Currently, the colours are at equilibrium; red is beginning to streak the sky, but traces of darkness still remain in the atmosphere. The sun is not yet fully risen. They have been tracking the doe all night. Their target is close. If they are successful, this will be Abigail's first kill._

_Garrett Jacob Hobbs unhooks a gun from his shoulder and passes it to Abigail. She says nothing as she takes it, the cold metal heavy in her green gloves. Carefully, she flicks off the safety catch and peers through the scope, her finger winding slowly around the trigger. She is calm. She has practiced this for years. She sees no reason why shooting a real animal will be any different to shooting at a target. In the end, both are beaten by the steady eye and the practiced hand._

_Abigail's finger tightens around the trigger. Her father leans in, a childlike delight in his eyes. They have stalked the prey. Now they will kill her, and after they shall honour her. It is a code that he lives his life by and he is anxious that his daughter share in it too. After all, it does not only apply to animals. He has made sure of that._

_A bang, and the forest explodes momentarily. Birds nesting in the trees behind them shoot up into the air, squawking their indignation. The gun shudders in Abigail's hands and then lies still. The shot echoes once. Then silence. In front of them, the doe's knees buckle and it falls, its deep eyes already glassed over. _

_Garett Jacob Hobbs rises and jogs across the forest floor. He crouches beside the doe and looks up for Abigail. Slowly, she too rises to her feet. She feels breathless as she lightly steps towards her prey. Her heart is hammering in her chest and she is amazed to find that, when she kneels beside her father and places her fingers on the smooth fur in front of her, her hand is trembling. But it is not fear or sorrow that has crept into her; she expected to be calm and she is. What she feels is far beyond that. She feels exhilarated. _

_She traces her fingers across the hide until she finds the bullet wound. The hole is no bigger than a ten-pence piece, cleanly made and barely noticeable. Around the wound is a bright circle. Bloodshed has not been entirely avoided. When Abigail removes her hand, it is stained scarlet. She raises her head to the sky and sees the same blood-red hue echoed back at her. And it is then that she knows. She doesn't quite know why or what comes next, but she knows. She has taken a step that she will never look back from._

"Abigail?"

The soft voice startled her, awakening her from her reverie. Hannibal was stood beside her door wearing a dressing gown, his short-cut hair slightly tousled from the night.

"I heard movement. Are you alright?"

She swallowed hard. "Yes."

She expected him to turn and leave, but instead he walked forward and sat down on the bed, gesturing for her to do the same. She obliged.

"You did not sleep well." It was not a question so much as a statement. She felt no need to reply. After all, he wasn't looking for an answer. Instead, she averted her eyes from his sharp face and stared at the floor. She could not look at him.

He closed his eyes for a second. "It is difficult to accept who we are sometimes, Abigail. Often others accept it much earlier than we ourselves do. It is an example of human fallibility. If we were all much more comfortable with ourselves, we could save ourselves a lot of pain."

She knew exactly what he was referring to, and she hated herself for it.

"You think that killing is who I am?" Now she did raise her head, almost defiantly, meeting his dark eyes with her piercing blue ones, not unafraid but subversive despite her fear. She did not have much strength left inside after the past seven months, and Hannibal was pleasantly surprised at the ferocity with which she challenged him. A pity that it would come to nothing.

"I think that you have to decide who you are. But we all have certain dispositions. Ignoring them is not only wrong but foolish."

Abigail said nothing but bowed her head again, so that her dark curtain of hair shrouded her face as though shielding her from the attack of Hannibal's words. She clenched her fists. Unclenched them. She could not appear weak. Not now.

Hannibal paused for a few seconds before speaking again. "I must ask that you remain upstairs for the duration of this evening, circumstances permitting. I want you to be safe if at all possible. Do you agree?"

She nodded.

"Good." He rose to his feet. "In the meantime, the house is yours; use it as you will."

The door clicked softly as he left.

Abigail waited until she was sure he was gone before burying her head in her hands, her choked sobs escaping uncontrollably from her mouth. She did not want to use the house. She did not want to do anything. She wanted only for the hands of the clock to cease to move, for the incessant movement of time to freeze in place, for the incomprehensible reality of this life to fade away to nothing. She did not want to sit and watch the clock move, minute by minute, hour by hour, closer and closer to the evening. She did not want to be counting down the hours of someone else's life.

_Tick, tock, tick, tock._

The clock on the mantelpiece was taunting her, _torturing_ her. She could not stop time. She could not save lives. She could only take time, and she could only take lives.

_Ticktockticktockticktock__**ticktockticktock-**_

Furiously, Abigail charged across the room and seized the clock in one hand. She lifted it above her head and, with a scream, brought it crashing down on the marble mantelpiece again, again and again until her arms ached and her hands bled from the shards of splintered glass.

Silence for a few blissful, wonderful seconds. Then, in between the ragged rush of her breathing, she heard it.

_Tick….tock….tick….tock…_

She froze. Closed her eyes, not in pain but simply in weariness. A single tear escaped and trickled down her cheek and onto her shoulder. She made no attempt to stop it. She was spent. Exhausted. She barely felt it as her body hit the wall with a thump and slid down to the floor where she lay, unmoving, as the blood trickled from her aching fingers.

She did not know how long she lay there for, dazed and lost in her own failure. All she knew was that when she finally roused herself to standing, the sky had shifted from light to dark and rain was hammering relentlessly on the streets, the water dictating a deafening melody from which nobody could escape.

From downstairs, she heard two deep, loud knocks. They seemed to reverberate in every corner of the house, echoing the start of a night so terrible that she could not imagine the consequences. Silence for a moment, then voices. Loud. Jovial. Forced.

Jack Crawford had arrived.


	6. Chapter 6

Fear has a way of bringing out something _other _in people. This is not necessarily something entirely _new_, but certainly something disparate, lurid, a sickening contrast from the behaviour of everyday civilians. This is the quality that allows the mother to lift a car from the body of her helpless child. It is also the quality that allows the pacifist to raise a gun to his friends and pull the trigger until his own survival is ensured in the trail of corpses and blood left in the dust.

Abigail knew only too well the effects of fear on the human mind. It was with fear with that she had lured eight girls to their deaths; it was with fear that she had fled right into the hands of Hannibal Lecter. And, right now, it was with a suffocating, asphyxiating fear that she turned her head from the screams and shouts of the fighting beneath her and stared out of her thinly-glazed window into the drowned street below.

The rain hammered relentlessly on the glass. Beneath her, Hannibal threw himself against the sturdy pantry door again, again and again as blood streamed from Jack Crawford's neck and onto his shirt.

Masked by thin walls and wood, a lone figure stumbled through the corridor leading to Hannibal's kitchen. Her expression was fearful and her outstretched fingers were curled around the cold butt of a gun.

Alana Bloom could scarcely breathe as she turned into the fiercely familiar doorway. Her heart hammered furiously in her chest, but she set her jaw bravely as though she could fight against the fear that was radiating from her body. These walls held every breath, every whisper of her relationship with the man called Hannibal Lecter. These walls and her heart alone knew every echo of their connection.

Somehow, she knew even before she stepped into the room that those echoes would soon be gone from her heart forever.

Upstairs, Abigail was unaware of Alana's presence. But she was not so far from the kitchen that she could not hear the dreadful cries of carnage, and when she heard them cease and be replaced with voices too soft for the occasion she knew that Jack Crawford had been joined. It was not easy to guess by whom. She closed her eyes.

_Not Will. Please not Will._

She did not know why she was so desperate for Will Graham to remain safe and unharmed; he had made his position very clear after killing her father and accusing her of aiding his crimes. But there was something vulnerable about him, something she couldn't resist. Vulnerability had never been a part of her father. He was always the hunter, always in control. Will alternated; sometimes hunter, sometimes hunted. She liked that. Something about it reminded her of herself.

She twisted her hands nervously and paced her room. Focused hard on her breathing. She must keep calm.

_Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock._

_In, out. In, out. In, out._

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

She started. The sound was unmistakeable; after seven months she felt as though she knew every echo of the house. Someone was climbing the stairs.

Her heart leapt to a thunderous frenzy as her thoughts scrambled, each one vying for attention in her brain.

_ThumpthumpthumpTHUMP__**THUMP-**_

The footsteps were nearly upon her. Terrified, she forced her legs to move and sprinted to the conjoining room, her heart hammering. She did not close the door. The darkness was all the cover she needed.

Silence.

The door burst open and Alana Bloom scrambled into the room, terror etched upon her face, a revolver clutched tightly in her hands. She slammed it behind her and turned the silver lock. Even from a distance, Abigail could clearly see that her hands were shaking. She could hear her, too. That dreadful sound of human fear. The sobs mixed with the adrenaline mixed with the panic erupting out of her mouth, escaping her, _betraying_ her, laying her down as nothing more than another creature to be hunted, another name to add to the list on Hannibal Lecter's chalkboard.

Abigail watched as she leant over her bag and scrabbled inside it, pulling out a black cartridge and slotting it into her gun. In other circumstances, the speed at which she carried this out despite her shaking hands would have been impressive. Right now, it just seemed desperate.

She lifted the gun in both hands and stationed herself in front of the wooden door. Her eyes burned with determination as she pulled her fingers over the trigger. She shot twice. Each bullet created a small, round hole in the door. Neither hit its mark.

"I found more bullets!" Her voice was strained.

Outside the room, a floorboard creaked. Alana braced herself and shot for a third time.

For the third time, she missed.

Abigail jammed her fist into her mouth and bit down hard. _Keep quiet. _Secrecy was an advantage; Alana must not know she was here. Just keep quiet. Keep calm. Hannibal was just outside. Hannibal would keep her safe.

_In, Out._

_Just keep calm._

_In. Out._

The seconds were crawling by, but even so, Abigail knew he was taking too long.

_What is he doing?_

Abigail's thoughts began to race. Hannibal was supposed to be here, to protect her. He knew she was in here. So why was he taking so long?

_What is he waiting for?_

It was then, crouched in the corner with little to cover her but darkness, that Abigail finally realised. Hannibal was waiting. He was waiting for _her_. Alana was not here to be a name on Hannibal's chalkboard. Hannibal was not going to enter, he was not going to save her. He was simply going to wait. And, as she climbed shakily to her feet, she suddenly understood. She had no power. She had never had any power. The only power she had was to do as Hannibal asked, just as she had had to do as her father asked, and he had known that right from the beginning.

_Are you ready to kill again, Abigail?_

There are some questions that are just too dreadful to answer with words.

A single sob escaped Abigail Hobbs' throat as she stepped out of the shadows and towards Alana Bloom.


	7. Chapter 7

_My life closed twice before its close;_

_It yet remains to see_

_If Immortality unveil_

_A third event to me,_

_So huge, so hopeless to conceive,_

_As these that twice befell._

_Parting is all we know of heaven,_

_And all we need of hell._

In the space of a heartbeat, everything can change.

Life begins with a heartbeat. Life also ends with one.

Some argue that everything that happens in between is an irrelevance. Some say it is the only thing that matters.

Most say that they do not and cannot know.

Abigail Hobbs fell into none of these categories. She would not call the grunts and rhythms of life an irrelevance, but neither did she believe that they were the pinnacle of importance. Perhaps earlier in her life that was a view she would have held. Now she held no view; or rather, she held every view. Whichever was needed to survive at that current moment she took upon her shoulders and wore like a shroud until it was time to slip it off and assume a new perspective. Whichever one she took was not predictable; she made conscious decisions to make sure that her thoughts could never be guessed.

That was, with one exception. When she killed, Abigail always had the same state of mind.

When she killed, she focused solely on the movement, on the moment.

When she killed, everything mattered.

So when she saw Alana's face contort with confusion, her eyes open wide, she did not ignore the disbelief etched across the woman's face. When she saw her lower her gun, she allowed her own tears to run thick and fast, blurring her vision and streaking her cheeks. She knew exactly what she was doing. She had done it before and she would do it again. She was aware of every particle, every fibre of the room, of the people. She was slaughtering the innocent.

"Abigail?" Alana's voice was stricken. Strained. Abigail closed her eyes momentarily, wallowing, allowing the grief to rise up from her belly to her throat. What spilled out of her mouth at the other end was not a lie.

"I'm so sorry…."

Abigail placed her hands on the soft lapels of the other woman's coat. Swallowed hard. And pushed.

Alana made no sound as she fell. The decline was almost graceful, peaceful, a surrender to the window behind her which shattered into thousands of tiny, shimmering knives to make way as the doctor plummeted, her eyes half-closed.

Hannibal had told her once that there is great beauty in destruction and, despite the tears streaking freely down her cheeks, Abigail did not look away. She wanted only to share in this beauty, to understand, to _agree _that there is magnificence in death. She wished for justification. But the further Alana fell, the more horrific she found it. It was as though she was watching it in slow motion; she could see every particle, every moment of Alana's final seconds. _The devil is in the detail_, people say, and now she knew this to be true.

Her final sob was choked as Alana's body hit the street below, landing broken on the floor like an old toy of a god, finished and useless. It did not look beautiful to Abigail. It looked twisted and wrong, as though it had been taken out of a nightmare.

_This is not a dream, Abigail. This your becoming._

_This is your beginning._

But this beginning lacked all desirable features; there was no rush of excitement, no sudden revelation of belief or direction. There was just the deafening tumult of rain and the shocked, sharp whispers of her own breath, murmuring to her a rhythm to which she was bound for as long as her heart kept beating.

_In. Out. In. Out._

For one minute Abigail stood alone at the window, unable to tear her eyes away from the destruction she had created. She half expected, half _wished _for Alana not to be dead, for her body to move, breathe, _anything._ But below her the scene remained unchanged; above her, the rain thundered on.

In a desperate attempt to drag her eyes away from the body on the pavement she reached out slowly into the storm, her pale, shaking hand a contrast to the blackness of the night. She had not felt rainfall in a very long time and the mere feel of it shocked her, the icy drops drilling into her skin like knives, slicing her fingers again and again.

She began to shiver. A roll of thunder shattered into the night, smashing the dreadful silence, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to leave this room, leave this house, leave everything. She drew her hand back sharply from the rain and closed it into a fist. The raindrops glittered on her fingers like moonstones. Disgusted, she shook her hand vigorously and watched as the water fell from her skin.

Abigail whispered a quick goodbye to Alana before she turned, somehow unable to help herself. She did not know why she did this, only that there was something intricately harrowing about seeing the psychiatrist's body sprawled on the street. It was disjointed. Untimely. But there is never a good day to die.

Her breath caught suddenly in her throat as she turned from the window, her eyes sweeping the room behind her. She froze almost animalistically, like prey that has suddenly caught the scent of their hunter. A strong, dark silhouette of a man stood beside the door. She had not heard him come in.

Neither figure moved. No words escaped their lips. There were no congratulations, no celebrations. There was no concession of the deeds performed by each shadow earlier that night.

Simple acknowledgement hung heavy in the air as Abigail Hobbs and Hannibal Lecter faced each other. For this fleeting moment they were equals, survivors of their victims and champions of their respective dices with death. Each saw the other clearly; there were no disguises, no facades, no more petty irritations standing in the way of truth.

There was simply silence.

Abigail did not know how long the silence lasted. She was not counting the time, and for once the beating of her heart no longer sounded frail to her, like a bird beating its wings helplessly against a cage. For this moment, her heartbeat was a token, a reminder of her strength and all that she had lived through. For this moment, she was liberated.

Then, as softly as he had entered, Hannibal was gone, leaving nothing but the racing of her pulse and a distant, almost imperceptible odour of copper behind. Abigail waited a few seconds before following him, her feet treading lightly on the wooden floor. She did not look back.

The staircase showed no sign of a struggle, but the same could not be said for the rest of the house. She noticed it as soon as she entered the corridor, the blood as red as wine seeping from under the pantry door, slipping between the floorboards, spilling its coppery scent up into the air around her. She closed her mouth quickly to stop herself from crying out when she saw it. She dared not ask if the man on the other side was dead or alive; she supposed it was irrelevant. If he wasn't dead yet he would be soon.

She forced herself past the scarlet pool and found Hannibal in the kitchen. In his hands was a small linoleum knife. He was turning it slightly between his fingers, examining it reverently as though it were special, even sacred. When he appeared to be satisfied he slipped it into his pocket and looked up. His eyes met hers briefly.

"Wh-what's that for?"

The question barely stuttered through her lips but she was determined to speak it, to not be kept in the dark again, to _understand _her predicament rather than be driven to an ends like a bull that suddenly sees the red cape flashing before it and cannot help but charge. But Hannibal did not let his secrets go so easily. Instead, he walked over to where she was stood and placed her cold, frail hands in his.

"There has been a great injustice done to me. To seek revenge, I will do as I have to."

"And you need the knife?"

He dropped her hands and turned away. When he spoke again the words were icy, designed to strike fear into the heart of their receiver. "The knife is necessary, yes."

She swallowed hard. She was well aware that there was something that he wasn't telling her, but her decision not to ask again was an executive one. Hannibal had been in control of every aspect of this game so far; she had to trust that he retained that control, and that it would work in her favour. She wrung her hands together nervously, but said nothing more.

Outside the house, car tyres squealed abrasively against the concrete road. The sound was clear despite the tumultuous rain that hammered furiously on, drumming an endless rhythm. Hannibal slowly looked up.

"You know who this is, don't you?" Abigail began to shake, her lips quivering, her eyelids fluttering. But there was a strange calm in Hannibal's reply, a quiet acceptance.

"I think we both know who, but more importantly, what, lies on the other side of these walls. Everything ends, Abigail. This you must understand. But I did not wish for this ending. Truly, I am sorry."

Her heart fell to her stomach and her eyes pricked, helpless panic rising desperately from her belly to her throat. She could not stop the tears.

"Please. _Please._ You don't have to do this." But even as she choked the words out they sounded hollow and empty. Useless. They both knew that the choices had been made and all the moves had been taken. There was no other chance, no other way. This was the finish, the finale, the only conclusion. This was the last goodbye.

In the corridor, floorboards creaked.

Hannibal looked straight into her eyes. There was nothing malicious in the stare, only clarity.

"Please stay where you are."

The please was a formality. All of her choices were gone. Tears spilling down her face, she nodded.

Dr Lecter turned and exited the room.

The few seconds that Abigail was left alone echoed. As much as she wished them to be, they were not peaceful. She had thought that the silence might bring her some calm, but her brain had not accepted its end yet. The desperation of the human to cling to life, even life barely worth living, is extraordinary, and it tore ferociously at her mind.

_Just move. Just run. That's all you have to do. Down the corridor and into the rain. It doesn't have to end like this._

She inhaled deeply, forcing her racing heart to slow, closed her eyes and allowed her brain to take over. Memories flashed vividly behind her eyelids; her tenth birthday. Christmas tree lights twinkling by a window displaying a world blanketed in white. Thanksgiving, the only event that ever brought the whole Hobbs family together. Hunting trips with her father. Her mother's eyes staring, blank. The knife sinking into Nicholas Boyle's stomach. Will Graham's rough fisherman's hands clinging onto hers. Hannibal Lecter's kitchen. And Alana. Alana's soft coat, warm beneath her fingers, her heartbeat barely impressionable through the woven fabric as she pressed her hands against it. Alana's cold, fallible body hitting the pavement and lying still, covered in broken glass that twinkled painfully in the moonlight. Alana's last desperate attempt at salvation, now only a memory left in wooden splinters on the floor of her former lover's house.

Footsteps, louder by the second.

Abigail blinked once. When her eyes were fully open again, there was only one thought left in her broken, bitter brain.

_Yes, it does._


End file.
